Comment on Acts 7:59

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 31, 1883

Comment on Acts 7:59.

"AND they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." It is scarcely necessary to explain that "calling upon God," refers to Stephen, and not to his persecutors. It was Stephen who called upon God, and said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." This latter expression is the stumbling-block to many. Those who hold to the dogma of a conscious existence after death seize upon it with avidity, as positively proving their theory. It really proves nothing except that Stephen wished to have life restored to him again at the last day (John 6:40, 54). This subject is well considered in "Man's Nature and Destiny," by Elder U. Smith, from which we quote:—

"There is another class of expressions respecting the word spirit, which properly come under consideration at this point. The first is Ps. 31:5, where David says: "Into thine hand I commit my spirit." Our Lord used similar language, perhaps borrowed from this expression of David, when, expiring on the cross, he said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Luke 23:46. And Stephen, the martyr, in the same line of thought, put up this expiring prayer: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Acts 7:59. What was it which David and our Lord wished to commit into the hands of God, and Stephen, into the hands of Christ? A conscious entity, it is claimed, the living and immortal part of man; for nothing less could properly be committed to God. Thus Mr. Landis asks: "What was it then? The mere life which passed into nonentity at death? And can any one suppose they would have commended to God a nonentity? This would be a shameless trifling with sacred things." But David, on one occasion (1 Sam. 26:24), prayed that his life might be much set by, or be precious, in the eyes of the Lord. That which is precious in his sight, it seems, might very properly be commended to his keeping, especially when passing, for his sake, out of our immediate control. And in the very psalm (31) in which he commits his spirit to God, he does it in view of the fact that his enemies had "devised to take away his life." Verse 13. . . ."

"Thus our life is something that we can commit to another for safe keeping; it can be taken away from us; we can give it up, or lay it down. Is it, therefore, a distinct entity, conscious in death? If it is not, then equivalent expressions applied to the spirit do not prove that to be conscious in death and immortal; for they prove the same in the one case as in the other; and whatever they fail to prove in the one case, they fail to prove also in the other."

"But if the spirit, as is claimed, lives right along after death, just as conscious as before, and a hundredfold more active, capable, intelligent, and free, where would be the propriety of committing it to God in the hour of death, any more than at any point during its earthly existence? There would be none whatever. Entering upon that permanent higher life, it would be much more capable of caring for itself than in this earthly condition. The expression bears upon its very face evidence that those who used it desired to commit something into the care of their Maker which was about to pass out of their possession; to commit something into his hands for safe keeping until they should be brought back from the state of unconsciousness and inactivity into which they were then falling. And what was that? It was what they were then losing, namely, their life, their pneuma, which Robinson defines as meaning, among other things, "The principle of life residing in the breath, breathed into man from God, and again returning to God." And when the life is thus given up to God by his people, where is it? "Hid with Christ in God." Col. 3:3. "And when will the believer receive it again? When Christ, who is our life, shall appear." Verse 4. Then Stephen will receive from his Lord that which while dying he besought him to receive. Then they who for Christ's sake have lost their life (not merely their bodies while their life continued right on) will have that life restored to them again."